


Spiral Down

by vasaris



Series: Liber Custodes [1]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - Fandom, Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, The Sentinel
Genre: GFY, Gen, Rough Trade July 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 21:06:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6440731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasaris/pseuds/vasaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Maribelle Jones, the world is a cold and desolate place.  She can hear and see things most people cannot.  Everywhere she looks, there are things hiding in the shadows, scuttling out of normal sight. Voices float on imperceptible winds, carrying sounds that defy understanding or reason.  Maribelle cannot speak of these things, because if she did she would be taken by the authorities.  People like her are called many things:  Wardens, Guardians, Protectors, Sentinels.   They protect the world from threats within and without, mindless, heartless drones pulled from society from the moment their gifts manifest.</p>
<p>She spends her life quietly, in ruthless mediocrity, calling no attention to herself as she moves through a world both wondrous and terrible – until theday he finds her.  Alan Rho Petty, the man at the top of the FBIs 10 most wanted – a Sentinel's Rights advocate and the man that everyone refers to as The Guide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiral Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rough Trade 'Little Black Dress' Challenge.
> 
> Mythos, meet The Sentinel; The Sentinel, time to regret life.
> 
> Art by the amazing Marlislash Gabs.

It’s a dreary day in mid-November when Maribelle first meets Alan Petty.  It isn’t every day that strangers came through the accounting department, disrupting their discreetly rigid routine of work and breaks and bitching around the watercooler.  He was tall and dark, with chocolate skin melting over elegant bone structure like the richest ganache.  Dark eyes flashed with sardonic humor as he prowled between cubicles, greeting some of her co-workers like old lovers and others like new-found friends.

“This is Maribelle, Alan,” says her boss, Portia.  “I’ve spoken to you of her before.  Maribelle, this is Alan Petty – a friend of mine from way, way back.”

Maribelle looks up from her work, hands stilling on her keyboard as the scent of rich earth and ancient dust fills her nose.  The scent is heady and inviting and reminds her of small things hiding in dark corners.

She sneezes and pulls a handkerchief she’s scented with lemon and lavender to her nose, using it to overwhelm the scents of the room.

“Oh, pardon me!” She gives the man a hesitant smile, but does not offer her hand.  The eyes and face are vaguely familiar in a way that is distressing, but she doesn’t dare try and figure it out just now, not with him and Portia staring down at her.  Maribelle hunches in on herself, consciously trying to look small and unremarkable.

“Hard at work?” he asks, and she nods slightly, widening her eyes the smallest fraction, so that Portia sighs and smiles gently.

“Best get back to it, Maribelle.  Don’t forget that we need the Anderson report by close-of-business today.”

“Of course, Portia.  I’ll have it in your inbox by 4:30 at the latest.”

“Thank you, dear,” says Portia before leading the man away.

Maribelle shivers, suddenly cold in a room that is perpetually warm, and she takes a slow, calming breath.  She closes her eyes for a moment, concentrating on the sweet scent and cloud-soft feel of her handkerchief in order to ground herself and ensure that the locks she’s placed upon herself – upon her perception of the world – remain firmly closed.  It’s been years since she last had a sensory spike and today is not the day that she’s going to have another one.

Still, the scent of Portia’s friend lingers in the room, making her itch in a way that can’t be scratched.  Maribelle bites her lip gently, forcing herself to page through spreadsheets, eyes ever-so-slightly unfocused as she scans through the numbers so that unexpected changes leap out.  Her mind collates the information effortlessly, but she carefully times how long it takes her to correct or change information.

One has to be ruthlessly mediocre when one wants to stay hidden within the crowd.  She doesn’t stand out.  She can’t afford to. So she remains on the positive side of average; a good worker, competent enough to trusted, but not so spectacular that she draws attention.

It’s boring.  It’s frustrating.

It keeps her alive and out of the hands of the government.

It’s always a funny thought, like a fairytale.  Once upon a time, long, long ago, the world didn’t know about individuals like her:  people who could see farther, hear more, feel more acutely, taste or smell _everything._   People like her could be anything they wanted, policemen, teachers, cooks; firemen, stock brokers, bakers.  They had choices.

Well, in theory, Maribelle thinks, with an almost soundless snort, writing her notes out in precise, elegant longhand.  _Most_ ended up catatonic in mental institutions because they couldn’t control what they saw or what they heard.  But the theory was there – they were people who had choices like any other.

Then the day came that the world found out that they existed.  Some fool – some idiot, some clot, some lackwitted _buffoon_ had published research about them.  Oh, he had claimed that his research was bogus, but it hadn’t taken much time for the Powers That Be to find that it was anything but a lie.

“We will find these people and teach them,” said the President, her voice clean and clear on a bright summer day, telling the story of poor, institutionalized people who had nothing _wrong_ with them but senses that went far beyond the norm.  “We will give them a chance to lead lives that aren’t defined by the walls of institutions.”

Crowds had roared their approval.  Maribelle knows, she’s seen the footage.  How could they not?  Hundreds, _thousands_ of people being given a chance at life that they never would have had before.  They were wards of the State, but that was alright – otherwise they would be madmen and suicides and drains upon the system.  The State could give them training, give them purpose, and give them _life_.

At first that might even have been true, Maribelle supposes as she collates her data into a reasonable facsimile of sense.  Men, women, and children taken from hospital wards and brought out of their mindless catatonia.  They were given the opportunity to make lives.  It must have seemed a miracle.

The adoring crowds simply hadn’t thought through what it meant when their newly trained guardians hit the streets.  Men, women, children – hyper vigilant information gatherers walking among them at any stage of life, reporting everything they heard or saw, scented, tasted, or felt.

Powerful.  Invisible.

Heartless.

Because that was the price the newly-dubbed _Sentinels_ had to pay for their control – complete dissociation from what they observed.

_It’s too much,_ the medical journals said.  _They see too much.  They feel too much.  It drives them mad with rage or despair.  They must be taught to divorce themselves from it, to act rationally in the face of everyday horror._

And so Maribelle hides.  She experiences things no one else does, but she’d far rather the threat of madness than the emotional butchering the government will give her if they ever catch on to her senses.

She’s still lost in thought when she sends the Anderson report at 4:28 PM, _precisely_ , and jumps almost a foot when that rich, velvety voice speaks to her again.

“Still hard at work, I see.”

The small shriek she gives echoes throughout the office, causing several of her co-workers to laugh.  The ability to _be_ startled is one that Maribelle has put a lot of effort into – after all, a _Sentinel_ would hear people coming from a mile off, or so the stories say.  Several of them are assholes who enjoy making her squeak, but Maribelle figures that it’s better than being known for greeting them before they come into sight range.

“Oh! Mr. Petty!” She glances up at him and then turns her eyes back to her computer screen.  “Um.  Yes.  I mean, I just sent Portia the report she asked for, but I’ve always got a lot to do.”

He saunters smoothly into her line of sight, leaning casually over the wall of her cubicle, sunglasses dangling idly from one hand.

“Miss Maribelle, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s okay,” she says softly.  “It happens a lot.”

“It really does,” calls Norman, from the cubicle kitty-corner to her own.  “It’s really easy to make Maribelle scream.”

“Well,” says Mr. Petty coolly, “since scaring people isn’t kind, you should try not to do it, then.”

Maribelle flushes, hot and heady, eyes rising to meet Mr. Petty’s.  The scent of him hits her again, black earth and disintegrating parchment, with a faint sweetness that makes her mouth water.  She swallows quickly, lowering her thresholds again.

“…um.  Thank you?” she says hesitantly.  No one has ever actually tried to defend her before and Maribelle has long since resigned herself to the trifling cruelties her manufactured idiosyncrasies bring her.

He smiles down at her and his eyes seem to shine, like a void filled with stars.

“I was wondering if you’d be interested in coming to dinner with me.”

Maribelle feels her eyes widen comically large. “M-me?  Oh, no, Mr. Petty –”

“—Alan, please, my dear—”

“I-I’m not, I d-don’t… go out.  Much.  I mean, r-really, a-at all.”

“Well, you have to eat, don’t you?” There’s something incredibly tempting about that smile, yet all she feels is cold.

“Of course, but I – I’m not interested in relationships.  I’m sorry i-if that disappoints.”

Mr. Petty sighs softly, putting his glasses on.

“We could just go as friends, but I can see you’re not… ready for that.” He shrugs and reaches within his sport-coat.  He pulls out a business card and drops it onto her desk with a neat flick of his wrist.  “But you will be one day, and when you are – call me.”

He glides out with a rolling swagger that draws every eye.

“I can’t _believe_ you said no to him!” says Marsha as soon as the door closes.  “Did you _see_ that ass?”

“ _Everyone_ saw that ass,” says Loren, sounding dazed.  “Choirs of angels sang as that ass went by.  Christ _wept_ , Mari, why’d you say no?”

“I don’t know him,” says Maribelle, not needing to feign shyness at all.  It had been terribly disconcerting when Norman had asked her out a year ago, and she worked with him every day.  Having a man who looked like _that_ approach her was like having the world fall off of its axis.

“That’s what dates are _for_ ,” says Marsha, despairing.  “It’s like you were raised in a cave, Mari.  I mean, really, you don’t date.  You say no to everyone!”

“I’m not looking for anyone,” Maribelle snaps, suddenly irritated.  She can’t afford to, not when she’s got this kind of secret to keep.  As much as she’d love to have a partner, unless she can find someone to whom she can reveal herself, it simply isn’t in the hand she was dealt.

“So?” says Norman.  “If nothing else you’d have gotten free dinner, and I bet he goes to restaurants like _Place D’Or_ and _Elysium_.”

“She doesn’t want to go to _Place D’Or_ ,” says Loren.  “Her idea of fine dining is the taco truck.”

“That’s not true,” says Maribelle.  “Although they make fantastic burritos.”

“I don’t know how you can eat those,” says Marsha.  “You always get them with the peppers and the death-salsa, and I’d catch fire if I tried that.”

Maribelle laughs.  One advantage to having absolute control of her senses of taste and touch is the ability to savor spicy food in a way that many others can’t.  It’s a training tool and a delicious, delicious way to keep her co-workers from stealing her food.  Only John, down in IT, likes his food as spicy as she does, and Maribelle has no idea how he does it, since he doesn’t have the kind of control she does.

Loren snorts in disgust.  “Well, I guess we know what kind of man Maribelle doesn’t want.”

“Handsome, well-connected, and wearing custom-tailored suits?” asks Norman.

“Strange guys that come out of nowhere to ask her out.” Loren’s lips twitch up.  “I mean, jeez.  I’ve seen him before, but I think that was two or three years ago, before they hired Mari.  If you think about it, it _was_ a little creepy.  He could’ve just asked her for coffee.”

Maribelle snorts softly and drops out of the conversation and Loren and Marsha begin debating the creep factor of Mr. Petty’s action.  It’s the work of a few moments to check that she’s done with the day’s work.  She considers her inbox for a moment, contemplating what tasks she might finish in the twenty minutes she has left when a priority message pings into her mail.  It’s Portia, with questions about her report.

Maribelle sighs, letting Portia know that she’ll be right up to the office.  She shuts down her computer and picks up the file, along with all of her notes.

“Portia?” asks Norman, passing by her to file away his finished work.

Maribelle nods.

“Tough luck.”

She shrugs slightly.   “It happens.  There were some irregularities in the Anderson accounts, but I didn’t expect her to go into it _tonight_.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it.  I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Later, as she’s carrying a box with the few belongings she kept at the office, Maribelle considers that being fired for doing her job correctly is not really what she would define to be _fine._   Sometimes, mediocrity backfires.  Portia wouldn’t have chosen her as a fall-guy if she presented herself less timidly and her work had been more noteworthy.  Maribelle has no idea what Anderson, Inc. is actually hiding, but neither Portia nor Roxy Anderson had appreciated having their ‘errors’ pointed out.

Fortunately for her – and unknown to her now-erstwhile boss – it’s not as though Maribelle needs to work.  Her Uncle, who had long been a tenured professor at Miskatonic University left her a small fortune and an old, decrepit house on the edges of Old Arkham.  She’s always chosen to work – it’s far easier to hide amidst the day-to-day grind of the work-a-day salarymen and wage slaves who live out their grey lives in the yawning steel-and-concrete chasms of the city center.

Maribelle waits alone at the bus stop, trying to decide if she’s more grateful or angry that the meeting with Portia had gone on so long that she barely got out in time for the final bus.  As it is, she’ll barely make the last connection to the line that runs by her apartment complex. Still, it means that the bus is almost empty when she boards and swipes her transit card, so finding a seat for herself and her belongings holds no difficulty.

The bus jostles long the ill-kept roads, and Maribelle begins relaxing slightly, slumping into the dubious comfort of her seat.  In some ways it’s an entire relief to know that she won’t have to go in tomorrow – she won’t have to suffer the constant, crippling anxiety of hiding what she is.  She can just stay in her apartment and sleep if she wants to.  She can go to her Uncle’s house and begin rendering it fit for habitation.  Hell, she could just take a vacation somewhere warm.

Maribelle is barely paying attention when a small family boards the bus, her eyes focused on the cars as they pass by.  She looks up as the bus lurches forward, idly noting the young couple and their towheaded little boy, but turns back to watching the street go by, letting the rhythmic patterns of light and pavement soothe her mind to a gentle silence.

It’s in that state of mental quiet that she notices the scent of something that should not be there.  Ozone and aggression flicker through the air like bottled lightning.  She straightens slowly, letting her eyes scan over the bus, her eyes slightly unfocused so she can perceive more than just the usual spectrum.  The air conditioning blows fitfully, coughing small, slightly rancid gusts through otherwise still air.

“They’re here,” says the boy in a tiny, singsong whisper, staring at the floor below him.  Unconsciously she follows his gaze, to a writhing mass of tentacles and malice hovering just out of touch below the carriage and above the front axle.  It’s all she can do to not scream as she watches them undulate malevolently.  The boy looks up at her with a dispassionate gaze just as metal starts to shriek.

Time slows to a halt.  She knows those eyes, that utterly emotionless gaze.

_Sentinel_.

Then her heart beats, once, and the world speeds into overdrive.  She can’t see what the bus hits, but she knows that the wheels are unresponsive because of the queer, heaving mass of things that hold them still.  Her chest hits the back of the bench in front of her, a hammer blow of pain that hazes the world with white.  Glass shatters in a discordant crash, the edges of the safety glass rubbing together in an agonizing wail.  Metal and people scream as the bus rises into the air, momentum carrying it up and over whatever they’ve hit, and falling sideways into oncoming traffic.

The bus heaves and judders with the first impact as something hits the undercarriage with the force of a train.  It’s all Maribelle can do to keep conscious as the world wails and spins, coming to an eventual, wobbling stop.  She forces herself to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain of her ribs and the lancing agony of her feet.  For the first time since her senses began emerging she does not _care_ if her abilities come to light.

She can smell the fires that have already started, and the sound/scent of leaking fuel fills her with terror.  Maribelle doesn’t even glance at the driver – there’s no heartbeat coming from him, and the way the squirming _things_ tumble toward the corpses, she has no intention of going near them.

The two sentinels who had come aboard with the boy rise, their expressions blank and bloody as they survey the scene.  Maribelle knows that can see the _things_ too, but the two seem unconcerned as they move with intent toward the middle of the cabin.

Maribelle can barely contain her disgust as they walk past the unconscious child. 

“We’ve got to get everyone out,” Maribelle shouts.  She knows they can hear her.  Neither one responds, they just continue to walk toward the first of the emergency windows which now rests above them.  She has to hand it to them, they are brutally efficient.  The male lifts the female up far enough to get leverage upon the opening mechanism.  The female opens it in a casual display of extraordinary strength, and climbs out without a glance back.

The male leaps up, following her without a word or glance.

“What’s this then?” shouts a man who had been half-asleep in the back. His eyes are covered by ancient, cracked sunglasses the same way his body is covered with worn, tattered clothing. “Thems _Sentinels_.  Ain’t they suppose t’ help?”

Maribelle says nothing, because what is there to say?  Instead she listens for heartbeats and tries to revive who she can.  Sirens are approaching them fast enough for them to Doppler in ever-rising wails.

“We has got t’ get out,” yells the man from the back, he’s supporting an elderly woman who is keening in agony.  Maribelle doesn’t need the sound of the man’s voice echoing through the woman’s body to know the woman has a fractured hip.  “Theys not gonna make it t’ us before this thing _blows_.”

“Right,” says Maribelle, looking up at the open window.  There’s no time to be timid, indecisive or try to hide what she is.  All she can do is hope that people assume that it’s adrenalin that’s pumping through her system like the greatest intoxicant.  “How can we do this?”

He turns his eyes on her for a moment as another woman comes up, limping but otherwise all right.

“If we can get people up to the roof and have someone to take them as we let them down,” She’s speaking in an almost normal voice, but it’s a little too loud, like she can’t hear herself over the ringing in her ears.  The woman’s pupils keep flaring and contracting and she winces as the flashing lights approach.  “Christ.  This is horrible.”

Maribelle shudders as the woman moves, leaping up to the window and pulling herself up and out.  All she can do is hope that _that’s_ adrenalin, not a Sentinel strength and senses emerging in the face of utter disaster.

“You want to lift or pull?” asks the man, gaze centering on her.

“Lift – your upper body strength will be greater.”  Maribelle feels a fey smile cross her lips.  “I’ve got legs.”

“So you do,” he says with a small, rakish smile.  “Let’s see what you can do, Legs.”

After that it’s a blur. Lift-search-shove-repeat, shuddering as the _things_ scuttle around her feet, chittering-chittering-chittering as they feast upon the dead.

“Come on, Legs!” shouts the guy at the window as the strange, hungering things begin to swarm on the last of the dead, malignant and watching.  “Come on, you’s the only one left!”

It’s hard.  He’s got his hand stretched down as far as it will go, but it might as well be a thousand miles away the way she feels.  She can feel the eyes, voracious and cold settle upon her.

“Goddamn it, Legs!  Jump, damn you!  _JUMP!”_

Maribelle obeys the command, biting back a scream as cracked ribs violently protest the motion. He pulls her up and out, cushioning her against his chest as he manages to slither them both over the edge of the bus and drop them down.    She doesn’t think when her feet touch the ground – she just runs.  There’s a muted _whump_ as the flames reach the pooled fuel between the bus and the semi that had caromed into it, but the explosion, once the flames hit the half-empty fuel tank is what knocks her and her companion to the ground.

“Jesus Christ!” someone screeches.  “What the fuck are those things?”

Unaffected by the blast they skitter outward in a loathsome tide, crawling over the living a malevolent wave, before disappearing into the flickering dark.  Maribelle snaps her eyes closed, shuddering as she pulls her senses back.  She locks each down, one by one, trying to ignore the panicked wails of the woman who realizes that she’s just outed herself as a Sentinel.

The screams come to an abrupt end and when Maribelle opens her eyes, she’s not at all surprised to see that the two Sentinels from the bus have quieted her.

“ _Now_ they choose to act,” says her companion, eyes turned toward the action.  The woman looks over at them with a dispassionate gaze just as ambulances finally, _finally_ flood the scene.  The sentinel rises and the guy shoves himself to his feet. “Well I am _out_ , _jolie_.  Ain’t got no use for them _sen-ti-nels_ as can’t lift a finger to help.  Nice meetin’ you, Legs.  Maybe we be seein’ one another again.”

By the time the sentinel arrives he is _gone_ , disappearing into the dark without a trace.

“Where has your companion gone?” says the Sentinel flatly.  “He will be wanted for debriefing.”

Maribelle hunches, bracing her arms across her ribs.  She takes a careful, shallow breath before speaking. “Don’t know.  I’ve never met him before.”

“You are injured.  You should approach the medical personnel.  Do not return to your home.  You will be wanted for debriefing.”  With that, the sentinel turns and walks away.

“Fucking sentinels,” mutters the EMT that approaches her.  “How are you?”

Maribelle takes another breath, ribs screaming in protest.

“Not good,” she says, and blacks out.

~

Maribelle is day three into a bedside interrogation when she sees Alan Petty again.  She hasn’t the faintest idea why he’s exchanged a bespoke suit for surgical scrubs, but he is a welcome sight after the unending tide of government agents who keep trying to diagnose her as a Sentinel.  They question her over and over and over again about the crash. 

As if Maribelle has gotten this far without having absolute control over what should be autonomic responses.  Sentinels can detect lies – but only when the subject displays the symptoms of a liar and Maribelle isn’t going to give herself away that easily.

So she plays timid and allows herself to react with her very real fear when they try to intimidate her, but the very presence of those dispassionate, emotionless eyes is more than enough to keep her from making mistakes.  Still, the footsteps outside the room are unwelcome until he walks in, the scent of earth and parchment, with that hint of something else, unidentifiable saturating the air.

“Miss Maribelle,” he says, going to stand at the end of her bed and checking her chart.

“Mr. Petty,” she says quietly.  “You’re a doctor?”

He shakes his head.

“I thought you might like to get out.”  He looks at her with a smile.  “Escape the assholes who are holding you here.”

“I don’t think they’ll just let me walk out.”

The starlight eyes laugh at her.

“Oh, let me deal with that.”

Maribelle frowns up at him, confused.  “But…”

She stops, staring at him, certain things clicking into place.  He had looked familiar to her when they met at the office, but she hadn’t been able to place his face.

“You’re _the Guide._ ”  That’s what the FBI called him when they splashed his likeness on the news.  Alan Rho Petty, who broke into hospitals and Sentinel facilities to rescue those taken and held by the government.  They claimed that he was a domestic terrorist with some kind of un-named skill that got sentinels to go with him, like children in the grasp of the Pied Piper, following him to their doom.

“The woman upstairs,” she says softly.

“I have people looking after her,” he says at a threshold too low for normal people to hear.  He helps her sit up, careful of her taped ribs.  He has a bag filled with street clothes – ratty jeans, a t-shirt, and a loose, hooded sweatshirt that Maribelle would normally never be seen in.  “She’s not… rational, and she’s violent.   If she calms down before the Sentinel Containment Facility sends a transport for her, we’ll get her out.”  He looks at her.  “We can’t save everyone.”

Maribelle nods, allowing him to help her dress. Loren and Marcia would be jealous, she thinks, as he kneels before her to help her get shoes on.  They’re a little loose, but not enough to impede her movement.  She loosens her hold on her senses and hears familiar – _hated_ – heartbeats.

She doesn’t speak, just hops to her feet and pulls up her hood.  Maribelle sees no reason to warn the sentinels on the floor that they’re going to find an empty room.  Petty nods in understanding, keeping his own mouth shut as he takes her hand.  They walk out of the room and down the hall.  One of the nurses looks at him and nods slightly, touching something on her desk.  Alarms begin going off, a confusing mess of light and sound that stuns Maribelle for a moment as she is pulled into the emergency stairwell.  The sound cuts off the moment the door shuts and she stumbles.

“They’ll be disoriented for a while,” says Petty.  “Now move, if you don’t want to be caught.”

Maribelle doesn’t need to be told twice, deliberately muting her pain responses so she doesn’t merely move, she runs.

Petty guides her past the ground floor exit, leading her to basement doors.

“We need to get through the ambulance bay,” he tells her, stripping off the loose scrubs and revealing jeans and a t-shirt.

“Right.” Maribelle breathes carefully.  Even with pain-reactions lowered, her she’s aware that her ribs are screaming at her and she doesn’t want to be so unaware that she damages herself badly without noticing.  Petty narrows his eyes at her and then nods in approval.

“We’ll be somewhere you can rest and heal up soon,” he promises.  He leads her through the basement, managing to get them through of the ambulance bay with a quick flash of cash to one of the EMTs.  They walk out, past flashing lights and squealing tires, unnoticed by anyone as they head past the parking lot and onto a side street.  A nondescript van stops and the side door opens revealing a trio of unknown faces, but Maribelle doesn’t resist when Petty helps her up and into a seat.

“Give me the sweatshirt,” he says softly and for a moment Maribelle doesn’t understand.  She blinks at him even as the hands of her seatmate pluck at the hems.  Then she understands – she’s been sweating into the fabric since they left her hospital room.  She manages to get it over head and handed off to him.  He nods and shuts the door, taking off at a slow jog one direction as the van moves off in another.

Maribelle looks around her and considers the strangeness of the situation, stuck in a van with people she doesn’t know, going who knew where.  She shifts in her chair, trying to find the most comfortable position.  It isn’t until they hit heavy traffic and some construction that any of her companions even makes a sound.

“We will arrive in forty minutes,” says the driver, utterly emotionless, and Maribelle freezes.  _Sentinel._

The one sitting next to her touches her hand, mimicking comfort badly.  She turns her head, forcibly controlling her breathing.  A dark haired young man of clear Asian descent stares at her with startlingly blue eyes.  His gaze is filled with _something_.  Something real – something tangible, but nothing so human as concern.

“You need not fear.  We are not from the Facility.  Alan freed us long ago.”

_Freed_ , she thought.  Freed but not healed.  She pushes her fight/flight responses away.

“Okay.”

“You are very good at that,” says another, empty voice from the back. “Already you stink less of fear and aggression.  A useful skill.”

“Do you even feel fear?” Maribelle blurts.

“No.” Her blue-eyed companion studies her.  “What purpose would it serve?”

~

Maribelle falls into a fitful doze, keeping her pain thresholds high enough that the bumps and jolts of the van don’t bother her as much as they otherwise would.  It is harder to ignore the silence of her companions then it is the ache of her ribs.  Were it not for the steady metronome beat of their hearts and breaths, she would think that she were surrounded by automatons.

As it is, Maribelle isn’t wholly convinced that they’re not.  She’s jarred into wakefulness as they come to a stop.

“We are here,” says the driver, getting out of the van.  The woman behind her opens the side door, revealing a cluttered suburban garage.  Maribelle stumbles out of the van, keeping herself upright by sheer dint of will.  Her body knows it’s been abused, even if she hasn’t been willing to let it tell her.

“Do you require assistance?” asks the blue-eyed sentinel as he emerges. “I am able to facilitate your entry into the domicile.”

“I’d like some help, yeah,” says Maribelle.  “D’you have a name?”

“Yes,” he says, wrapping an arm around her waist and taking some of her weight.  They walk slowly toward the inner door.  It isn’t until they reach the steps that she realizes that he’s not going to elaborate.

“Well, what’s your name?”

He comes to a halt and looks at her oddly.

“No one has asked me that before.  I do not understand.  For what reason do you wish to know?”

Maribelle, expecting him to stop, stumbles.

“Why do I want to know?” She stares up at him.  “I thought it might be nice to call you something other than ‘hey, you.’”

“But you have not called me ‘hey, you,’” he says in some confusion. “And I do not believe that I would answer to such a nominative.”

“So what _are_ you called?”

“I am told my mother named me ‘Zacharias Whateley’ but I am usually called W204.”

Maribelle gapes at him.  “Mr. Petty calls you W204?”

“No,” says Zach, stepping forward and propping the door open so that they can more easily enter. “He has another name for me.  You will learn of that later.”

He helps her into the house, leading her into a large, well-appointed kitchen.  There, Alan Petty sits amidst stacks of paper, pained and world-weary.

“Ah, Ms. Jones.  Welcome.  Please, sit.”

“Mr. Petty.”

“Alan, please – we’re not entirely strangers at this point.”  He rubs the bridge of his nose as she takes a chair.  “You’ll be pleased to know that our little sensory-disruption at the hospital shocked Alison Ward out of her screaming fugue.  She’s been taken to a different safe-house, but with time and a bit of luck, she should be fine.”

Maribelle smiles.  “That’s good to know.  Please, call me Maribelle.”

His lips curve in a tired smile.  “I’d be pleased to.  I’m sure you’re wondering about our introduction earlier – but it’s a bit of a long story, better suited to when you’re not exhausted and in pain.”

“Portia suspected I was a sentinel?”

“Actually, no – she thought that you might be a good fit for my organization.  Your abilities as a sentinel were a small surprise.” Alan slumped back in his chair.  “I’ll say that I wasn’t expecting that she was going to fire you.”

Maribelle bit her lip.  “The hazards of being a sentinel.”

“True,” says Alan, rolling his head back.  “I don’t know the specifics, but I’m betting you saw something you weren’t supposed to notice.  The government may go on and on about sensory abilities, but it’s really the information analysis that makes a sentinel shine.”

“As you say,” says Maribelle, chilled.  He’s absolutely right, of course.  Having extraordinary senses is only as useful as the ability to sort the input.  It’s an innate ability that has uses far beyond what people think of when they realize that the guy at the next table might be listening in.

“Ah, well.” Alan rolls to his feet.  “I’ll show you to your room.  There’s some pain medication if you want it, but I imagine that you’d mostly just prefer to sleep.”

“Thank you.”

The room he leads her to is a tiny thing filled with odd angles and strange geometries. It feels simultaneously larger and smaller than it should be.

“I hope you don’t mind – we’ve done a bit of renovation, since sometimes we need to house a lot of people without being obvious about it.”

Maribelle nods absently, taking a seat upon the bed.

“I’ll send someone to wake you for dinner – unless you’d prefer to sleep yourself out and raid the kitchen.”

Maribelle laughs and then winces, curling an arm around her ribs.  “Sleep sounds good.  You said there were pain meds?”

He points to the bottle on the bedside table.  “Oxycodone.  It’s a light dose, or so I’m told.”

Maribelle picks up the bottle and is mildly surprised to see that the prescription is in her name.

“We’ve a doctor on staff and several pharmacists who work with us,” says Alan.  “If you’re amenable, Dr. Mason will take a look at you tomorrow and make sure that we haven’t broken you any further.”

“That sounds good.”  Maribelle taps out a couple of pills and swallows them dry.  She grimaces at the taste.  It’s oxycodone all right.

“All right – if you wake and are hungry, feel free to raid the kitchen.  The pantry and fridge are stocked.”

Maribelle nods and he closes the door.  After a moment, she rises and locks it.  It’s a little late to worry about whether or not he and the sentinels in the house are trustworthy, but she feels more comfortable knowing that it would take an extra moment or two for them to enter the room.  She crawls into the bed, which is surprisingly comfortable, and curls up under the covers.

She drifts into slumber, passing into dreams with an ease that fills her sleeping mind with a vague unease.  Fields of stars and drifting light expand before her as she seems to float away from her body.  Maribelle finds herself walking on tangled paths of starlight, the sharp curves of gravity wells cutting into her unshod feet.

Alien architecture rises in impossible, mind-bending geometries as she moves, light bleeding out of her even as she breathes it in. Part of her wants to stop, to touch the unearthly, alien curvature, but her feet will not obey.  She spirals down, past darkness that froths in screaming angles and stars that sing unimaginable symphonies.  Strange, angular mists sprout from where she steps, unnerving portals bubbling from her bloody footprints.

Maribelle comes to a halt when she finds herself at the edge of a great plaza, where light lies shattered in a glittering mosaic beneath the claws of a dark, heaving altar.  Rows of men and women abase themselves in obscene ecstasy, their blood flowing in shining rivers to the grotesquely squirming base.

A book rests in impossible stillness upon the writhing altar and before it stands the woman from the bus – Allison Ward – her spirit shining in the eldritch darkness.  Alan stands by her, stars and galaxies spinning beneath his skin.  Maribelle watches in horror as he slices Allison’s arm, sending her soul spilling from her body, like blood spraying from a wound.

“No,” she whispers as Allison dips a dark stylus into the shining flow and bends to write something in the book.  It takes everything in her not to scream as Allison’s brilliant light fades to the dullest glow.  Alan says something, in a language elegant and unspeakably foul, and Allison drops to her knees, licking the remnants of her spilled blood from his boots.

Maribelle backs away, tripping and stumbling into the sharp, violet-grey mists that have risen behind her.  She can hear a strange, chuff-hiss echoing from many throats, and a sound-not-sound that reverberates in her bones.  Strange, disjointed shapes crowd her in mist, herding her toward the edge of the path of stars.  A brutal shove hits her in the back and she slips soundlessly over the edge and into a splintered, gleaming void.

She falls endlessly through impossible, shrieking geometries of time and space, where the beginning of all things meets the end.  Things lurk there in the grey-violet mists, watching and waiting.

Her screams strike sparks from time’s crystalline edges as she is swallowed by the dark.

~

Maribelle rouses to find herself surrounded by decaying pillars and slabs of concrete; a ‘condemned’ sign creaking and swaying in the frigid November breeze.  In the distance she can hear the jumbled cacophony of Arkham’s city center and the familiar murmur of Miskatonic University is closer by. 

She can hear the slow, lazy flow of the river and she realizes that she must be near the riverfront, where ancient warehouses and river-wharfs crumble unheeded into ruin.

This isn’t a place where she can rest or recuperate, for all that it’s unlikely that the Sentinel Facility will find her here.  Maribelle shivers, and it has little enough to do with the cold.  She’s not sure what she finds more frightening, being found by the Sentinel Facility or running into Alan Petty again – whomever or whatever he may be.

She shivers again, and harder.  The breeze isn’t strong, but it has a wicked bite.  She’s more than capable of controlling her reaction to cold, but that doesn’t make her immune to the November chill and won’t keep her from dying of exposure.

“Some rescue,” says Maribelle.  “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

Her words echo off of rotten concrete walls, spinning back to her with ragged vibrations that tell her how unstable the foundation and pillars actually are.  Whatever else it is she does, she absolutely can’t stay here.  There’s nothing for it, but to try and figure out where she is and try and get to safety.

The confusion and gibbering and crying can wait until then, she decides, standing upon the bloodied soles of her feet and dropping her sensitivity to pain so it barely whispers across her consciousness.

The wind licks a long, icy stripe up her back, and she shudders.  If nothing else, she needs to do something – anything – to ensure that she will have sufficient shelter for the night.

Maribelle makes her way out of the decrepit parking garage and into the lowering dusk.  The jagged teeth of Arkham’s forgotten waterfront leer at her from promethean shadows.  All around her darkness gathers, streetlights so rare and flickering she extends her sight beyond what humans can normally see.  The sound of the city is strongest to the north and east, across the slow, muddy flow of the Miskatonic.  Instead, Maribelle turns toward the south, where the old, historical district sits, quiet and unnaturally still.

If she can get there, she can get to her Uncle’s house, just past French Hill.

The sun sets, and with its disappearance fog rolls in from the river, muffling everything.  Maribelle hisses an imprecation as the scent/taste of slow, brackish water fills her nose and mouth with each breath of the noisome mists.  She makes her way toward the old Main Street, filled as it is with curio shops and boarded up storefronts.  The City Council is always bleating about how they want to clean the area up, and make it more friendly to tourists, but nothing ever seems to be done.

She stops below a flickering streetlight, trying to get her bearings, and hears an odd shambling gait coming from the looming dark.

She shivers.  Steps, but no heartbeat.  There are shambling, human-like shapes lurking in the darkness, with eyes that gleam a predatory gold.

Maribelle adjusts her course and picks up her pace, even though it will take her through the darkest shadows.  The lights of French Hill beckon her, if she can make it past ancient, crumbling tenements.  Corners and cracks begin to billow violet-grey smoke as the steps multiply up behind her. It merges with the thickening fog, glowing in spectra beyond normal sight.

_No_ , she thinks, and begins to run. She’s seen the things that skulk in those mists, lurking and ravenous as they tear and claw at the edges of time.

Maribelle ducks around a corner and slams straight into a familiar chest.

“Whoa, there!” A hand grasps her shoulder.  “That be you, Legs?”

Maribelle gasps.  “Hey, Arms.”

The man laughs, looking down at her from behind his ancient, cracked shades.

“Girl, it ain’t be safe here at night.”

She knows.  Even now the footsteps gather.

“Then why are you here?”

“Me?  I live here, _jolie_. I’m knowin’ the way of the world by th’ riverside.”  He cocks his head to one side.  “We’d best be gettin’ you inside, Legs.  Ain’t a night to linger.”

“No,” she agrees.  “If you could just tell me –”

“Now, now, little Legs, you goin’ to deny me the chance to offer you my hospitality?” he asks, taking a firm hold of her hand and leading her farther down the alley.  “What kind of man do you take me for?”

“One who saves complete strangers,” says Maribelle.

“Yes, indeed.  I be that kind of man, when the times be callin’ for it.  He pushed her toward a rusty fire escape.  “Up you go, Legs.  It be warm upstairs.”

She doesn’t argue, she just climbs.

~

Two levels up she finds a door into the building that’s cracked open a hair and goes inside.  She waits, listening to the sound of shuffling feet and uneven gaits pool at the bottom of the building.  Her host – and it’s ridiculous that she doesn’t even know his _name_ – pulls the ladder up with a clatter.

“Go on home,” he shouts down.  “Ain’t nothin’ for you here.”

Strange hisses and guttural grunts echo back up.  It’s clear that whoever – _what_ ever – it is outside isn’t going to leave.

“Damn fool ghouls,” he mutters as he comes in and shuts the door firmly, adding a chain and lock.  “You be safe enough from them now.  Ain’t no stairs up on the inside no-more, and they’s not smart enough to try and come up the escape.”

Maribelle raises a disbelieving eyebrow, turning her gaze on the lock.

“Yeah, well.  Ain’t no shame in bein’ careful.  Come on with you, _jolie_.  We needs to get somethin’ warm inside you, you ain’t even shiverin’ an’ that’s never a good sign.”

“Thank you,” says Maribelle, awash in gratitude.  “I don’t – well, I have no idea what’s going on.  I had help getting away from the hospital, but I… ended up here, I have no idea why.”

“Is that so?” he leads her to an old apartment. It’s a tiny thing, but she can see that it has – of all things – a working wood stove.  Her savior is certainly right about one thing – it’s a lot warmer in here than it was outside.  “Ain’t many reasons for endin’ up by th’ river, _jolie,_ an’ none of them is very friendly to my little Miss Legs.”

“My name’s Maribelle,” she gives him a smile.  “After all of this, I think you have a right to know my name.”

He turns and regards her for a moment, a slow smile curving cracked, chapped lips.

“My mama named me Jean-Jacques, but most, they just calls me JJ.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“An’ I, you.” He sweeps his arm toward the area by the stove.  “’T’ain’t much, but there be enough wood to keep us warm tonight.  Ain’t got nothing you would rightly call food, but theys be herbs enough around to make a mighty fine cup o’ tea.”

“Right now, I’d probably kill for a cup of hot, unflavored water,” she tells him honestly.

He laughs.

“I can be doin’ better than that.”  There’s an old, creaky faucet on the far side of the room.  “Ain’t got food, an’ it’s an adventure gettin’ enough wood for the winter – but water I got, least till the pipes freeze.  The city never turned it off, an’ praise be for that.”

He fills an old, tarnished kettle and brings it over to the stove.  A few sticks added to the fire in the stove’s belly, and the area next to it becomes more than just pleasantly warm.

“I hope you don’t mind sharin’ the blankets, _jolie_.  It ain’t often I get a pretty lady in my bed, but I swear I ain’t got no designs on your virtue.”

Maribelle snorts.  “I didn’t think you did.  And anyway –”

She trails off.  It’s not really appropriate to say _‘You don’t smell like arousal.’_   If anything it’s curious, since JJ doesn’t actually smell of much at all, for all his clothes are scented of dust and dry earth.  Still, she’s hardly going to ask him how he remains scent free.

“—you just don’t seem the type.”

He chuckles and piles thin, ratty blankets around her.  “Bein’ appreciated is a right fine thing, _jolie_.  I’ll get my cup an’ them herbs, an’ you’ll be all warmed up in no time.”

Maribelle nods her approval because she has started to shiver.  It doesn’t take long before her teeth begin to clatter and the muscle contractions are hard enough to _hurt,_ even through her altered thresholds.

“My, my, my, you did let yourself get cold, didn’t you?”

“N-not much ch-choice,” Maribelle manages to choke out.  “This is w-what they g-gave m-me to w-wear.”

“More’n a bit unsporting, you ask me,” says JJ, who has managed to crawl into the snug cocoon.  He’s chilled, too, but still warmer than the air outside.  “What be the point of stealin’ a sentinel if leavin’ them t’ die is what you do next?”

Maribelle winces.

“Oh, don’t be worryin’ about me, _jolie._   I ain’t about to tell anyone what you are or where you be.  Be a bit counterproductive, if you see what I mean.”

“You’re a s-sentinel?”

“After a fashion,” says JJ.  “Ain’t never done theys damn testin’, but I see the things you ain’t supposed to see.  I knows th’ things you ain’t supposed to know.”

Maribelle nods in understanding.

“You understand, don’t you _jolie_?  Th’ things you see that creep in the dark.” The water whispers at just under a boil and JJ reaches up to snag the kettle.  He pours the water over the herbs and the room is filled with the scent of sweet, fresh growing things.  “Here.  Now let it steep a few minutes.  Do you want to hold it?”

“I-I’m not sure I c-could k-keep it still,” Maribelle admits, although the shivering is starting to taper off.

“Well then,” he says and brings the cup beneath the blankets, letting the heat radiate into the warming space between them. “We let it steep an’ I’ll hold it for you if we must.”

Maribelle sighs, getting as close as she can and resting her head against his shoulder.

“H-have you ever th-thought about g-going?” she asks.  “To the F-Facility, I mean?”

“A long time ago.” JJ admits.  “I was at th’ University, studyin’ in History.  They’s got a grand History department, does Miskatonic.  They’s got all th’ books an’ art- _i_ -facts, an’ that’s a true fact, _jolie._   Then I started to hear the things.  They’s always got dark chantin’ in th’ library, an’ strange _things_ in the archives.”

He lifts the cup to her lips and she drinks.  She’s not sure what she thinks of the flavor.  It’s not unpleasant, though it is strange and bittersweet.  It’s the heat that makes her gulp it down, though, warmth that begins to drive out the remains of the bitter cold.

“There you go, _jolie._   Would you like more?  The water in the kettle still be hot.”

“Mmmm,” she nods her assent into his shoulder, leaning heavily against him as she finally, truly feels warm.  She lets her senses rest, one by one, sighing gently.

“Right then.”  There’s something in his voice, something strange, but Maribelle finds she doesn’t care as he lifts the mug to her lips again.  “Drink up, _jolie_.”

She brings her hands up to take the mug from him and finds herself fumbling, causing the liquid to splash them both.  She frowns, pulling away, feeling dizzy.

“I—don’t understand,” the words slur out like she’s drunk.  “What was in that?”

“A little of this and a little of that,” says JJ, taking her wrist.  “To make it a little easier on both of us.  An’ because you ain’t like th’ others.”

She shakes her head slowly, pulling ineffectually at her hand.

“You said I was safe here.”

“No, _jolie,_ I told you that you was safe from th’ things outside.”  This time, when he smiles, he shows rows of pointed teeth.  “Ain’t never said you was safe from _me_.  Just your virtue.  Ain’t had a good meal in months, little Miss Legs, an’ you smell mighty fine.  _Mighty_ fine _._ ”

Maribelle flings out her hand and catches the half-full kettle, slamming him in the face with the heated metal and boiling water.  He screams, releasing her.  The ancient sunglasses shatter beneath the blow, revealing gaping, burnt-out holes.

Maribelle stumbles to her feet.  She manages to dodge around him, slamming hard into the door as she loses her balance.

“I _do_ like it when my prey has a bit of fight to them,” he calls.  “I’m a sentinel, same as you, _jolie_.  Don’t need eyes to hunt you.”

Maribelle snaps her awareness outward, trying to find paths out.  She can’t go down, but perhaps she can go up.  She caroms off walls, heading for echoing stairwells.

He catches her just as she slams into the door, finding it chained shut from the other side.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he breathes against her cheek.  “Don’t need eyes to see _at all._   Sentinels, they don’t see with they’s eyes.  Learned that th’ hard way, when I burned ‘em out an’ the world was _still there._   Shove a red hot nail in your ear?  You still hear th’ chantin’.  Y’should be grateful, Miss Legs.  Just puttin’ you out of your misery.  Like you said, I’m a man who likes t’help strangers when I can.”

Maribelle throws her head back as he moves, catching him hard in the nose.  He cries out, falling back.  She whirls unsteadily, nose twitching at the sweet scent of blood. Something in her practically salivates and she feels a low growl rise in her throat.

“I am not _prey,_ ” she hisses, sibilant and wild.  “I am the _hunt.”_

Grey-violet smoke billows out from every corner, sharp-edged clouds forming throughout the corridor.  Maribelle laughs as the _things_ that followed her through the abyss burst forth in a mass of writhing angles, spikes and tongues.

They fall upon him, like hounds upon a fox, ripping and tearing at the heat and life within him.  He falls to the ground, writhing as his soul bleeds out in silent silver screams.  The hounds’ tongues slide through his flesh in rhythmic undulation, thrusting deep and steady toward the man's rapidly dimming core.

Maribelle's knees give out, toppling her back.  She slides down the barred door, listening to her hounds as they consume their fill.  Their pleased grunts resonate darkly in her mind, filling her with nausea and obscene satisfaction.

 

This man will never harm anyone again.

 

Maribelle slumps, closing her eyes as the hounds approach, multitudes of whip-sharp tongues writhing in razor fractals in their mouths. A head bumps against her hand, metaphysical spines cutting through to her soul in a thousand pinpricks as it nuzzled into her side. Despite the pain, Maribelle can’t resist running her hand down the impossibly angled formations of the beast's back.  Sweet, dark energy fills her with each stroke and the thing _purrs_ in near-visible light.

 

"Thank you," she whispers as bits of her soul flake away, swallowed by the hound's darkness.  "Thank you."

~

Maribelle spends the night curled up before the wood stove, cleaning and wrapping her wounded feet. As she waits for the morning, she passes the time rifling through her erstwhile host’s few belongings. She dons couple of threadbare t-shirts and a hideous flannel monstrosity that under normal circumstances she wouldn’t be caught dead in.  She finds a hat that she can pull down far enough to cover her ears and decides that it’s good enough to be going on with.

She steals the shoes from his body without a moment of regret or remorse.

The milling footsteps below vanished with the rising sun and there are no heartbeats nearby when she goes to the fire escape.  JJ – or whomever that vile son of a dickless bastard had been – had used a cheap combination lock to close it, and it takes no effort to hear when the numbers tumble into place.

Maribelle climbs down, barely noticing the jolt to her ribs as she jumps the last few feet to the ground.  It’s early enough that few will notice her walking, and by the time she reaches her Uncle’s house, most will just assume she’s a student or a tourist.  Now that it’s light, she finds it easy to orient herself.  She walks up Main to Peabody and then wishes she’d thought to continue on to Powder Mill.  It’s always depressing to go past the old pauper’s graveyard and the long-since burned out husk of the old East church.

Morning traffic begins picking up as she navigates her way toward Sentinel Street, lips quirking at the irony.  Few people give her more than a passing glance and she tries to ignore the ones that do.  She pulls the hat lower down her face and turns the lapels of the flannel shirt up around her cheeks.

When Maribelle reaches her Uncle’s old home, she’s so grateful she contemplates kissing the ground of the unkempt gardens.  She locates the hidden door key and gratefully locks herself inside.  The two-story Georgian monstrosity still feels like home.

Maribelle kicks off the shoes and heads upstairs.  She knows she’s still got clothes in her old bedroom and she wants _out_ of these things from yesterday.  At this point she wants nothing more than a warm fire, Netflix, and perhaps a pizza.

That’s when she remembers that she doesn’t have her purse – that she doesn’t even have the faintest idea where it might be.

“For fuck’s sake,” she mutters, pulling out a worn Miskatonic U sweatshirt and old sweatpants.  It’s not like there isn’t cash – her Uncle had had a horror of banks, for all that he’d a fortune in investments, so she knows that there are bills tucked away here and there throughout the house.  But not having her identification and check card is disconcerting.

Then again, it’s not like she can use either right now, not when the odds are good that the Facility is looking for her.

Maribelle sighs.  First things first.

She heads down the stairs starts a fire in the library fireplace, thanking her habit of spending time here every month for the fact that the chimneys are clear and that the woodpile is stocked.

And that the utilities – and the cable – are still on.

She heads into the kitchen to check the freezer.  She’s in luck, since there’s a small horde of frozen food – at least enough to get her through a few days – and now all she has to do is figure out how to unwrap and re-wrap her ribs, so she can take a fucking bath and wash as much of the last few days from her that she can.

A small bark of laughter escapes Maribelle as she runs water hot enough to scald into the old, claw-footed tub.  The last few days have taken a toll on her temper if she’s thinking in profanities.  Then again, she thinks, leavening the steaming water with _just_ enough cold to keep it from actually burning her, there’s no longer any point in hiding what she is.  There’s no need for the same level of iron control, at least not in her thought and speech.

“Fuck,” she says experimentally as she removes the compression wrap the hospital put her in.  She takes first a shallow, then a deep breath and is surprised when there is almost no pain.  “What the hell?  What the _fucking_ hell?”

Words, she finds, are insufficient to encapsulate her surprise.

“It was you,” she says softly, now knowing the eyes that watch her from every intersection and corner.  There had been more than a dark, wet satisfaction in seeing her enemy fall.  There had been the surge of energy that had cleared her mind and allowed her to get back to the monster’s hidey-hole.  Maribelle sits on the floor, pulling the makeshift bandages off of her feet.

The skin is smooth and whole, without even a scar.

She laughs again, low and terrible.

There’s no point in dwelling on it, not when her bath is waiting.

~

Later, when she’s thoroughly clean and warm, Maribelle sits by the fire in the library.  There’s a certain comfort, she finds, in taking up old, worn habits.   She brushes her long, dark hair in smooth, even strokes long after she feels the last of the moisture evaporate.  It’s meditative, allowing her mind to rest without requiring her to sleep.

Maribelle’s not sure she’s ready for that.  Dreams and nightmares aren’t high on her list of things she wants to experience right now.

Instead she allows her mind and spirit fall into stillness as she unfurls her senses.  Her eyes fall shut and she remembers JJ’s words.  _Sentinels don’t need eyes to see._

He’s right.

She can see more clearly with her eyes closed than she does with her eyes open.  The library is filled with dust and echoes.  She can see her uncle working at the desk in the corner, herself as a grief-stricken child, a ruthlessly obedient teen, a quiet undergrad.  Her parents make out on the loveseat in the corner and her great-grandfather stands, madness written plainly on his face as he lifts a ritual knife from the display case.

Warm hair caresses her fingers.

She can hear every conversation ever held in the room, all at once.  Each sound, each moment distinct and clear.  She can hear screams from the basement, dark chants in obscure, dreadful languages from down the street.  She hears people fighting, making love, sleeping, singing, crying, choking, dancing, ranting.  She hears gunfire, mobs, shouts, prayers.  She hears Arkham, young and old, and knows that if she wanted, she could extend herself farther.

She doesn’t.

Maribelle lets it all wash over and through her, sorting itself and collating into neat files in her mind.  Time passes, endless and finite, as she packs each piece of information away so she can find it again.  She composes elegant rules for things she wants conscious awareness of and things that spark curiosity and interest.

Two streets over, TV news blares about an FBI manhunt.  Maribelle allows everything else fade into the background as her awareness hovers, watching dispassionately as her face is plastered across the screen with Alan Petty’s. They call it a kidnapping, but anyone paying attention will recognize that they think she’s a helpless sentinel in need of the government’s care.

Soundbites of her co-workers reacting in horror make her laugh, especially when Portia tries to justify having just fired such an amazing, heroic person.  Trying to make the idea of “not a good fit for the company” dovetail with “saves perfect strangers at the risk of her own life” is apparently something beyond her former boss’ PR skills.

Maribelle lets the sound of the news report diminish into the background as her stomach rumbles.  There’s time enough to worry about it once she’s eaten and had a chance for real sleep.

~

The next days pass in a strange fugue of training herself to leave her senses open without being overwhelmed and strange dreams filled with signs and portents that feel as though they should be important.  Each night, in her sleep, she finds herself in the Library, sitting with her uncle as he works on an esoteric translation.

_“I found a copy of Liber Custodes at a flea market, can you believe it?” he tells her, his gloved hand hovering lightly above the ancient, ancient text.  “It’s not Unaussprechlichen Kulten, but it’s far more relevant to you.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“ Liber Custodes, also known as Ars Venatorum, is the oldest known book that speaks of sentinels.”  He pens out another line, biting his lip.  “I don’t know if there are any extant copies anywhere, but this is copy of the Roman translation of the Greek, attributed to Gaius Petronius.  It’s said that the original τεχνική των κυνηγών dated to the time of Homer, or before.”_

_“I thought that that guy – Burton? was the first to bring Sentinels to the attention of the world.”_

_Her uncle snorts._

_“It was the first ‘discovery’ of sentinels in the modern world,” he says, laying his pen down.  “But Burton was an explorer, not a historian.  The kid who brought it to everyone’s attention, well, he was an anthropologist, not a classical scholar – or an occult one. Liber Custodes is… a rare book, one banned by the church centuries ago, so copies are excruciatingly hard to find.  There are few references to it anywhere.”_

_“Uncle…”_

_He looks directly into her eyes, his own cognac orbs lit from within._

_“You are not safe here,” he tells her.  “You will never be safe.  Find the book, little Mari.  Take what you need and **run.** ”_

Each night he grows more insistent, so she begins going through the house, collecting the loose cash and small, easily tradable or saleable items.  There’s far more than Maribelle had imagined.

She meditates in the library and singles out the echoes of her uncle, following him into the basement and into the hidden library there.  There’s a desk, a computer, and a box with her name on it.  She already knows that it contains a handful of ebook readers, a stack of hard drives, bearer bonds, and a stack of identity papers naming her Diana Venatori.

Books.  Money. Obscurity.

Her uncle was a clever man.

Maribelle listens for her name and she can hear it spreading, the hunt for her growing beyond the boundaries of Arkham.  It grates on her, rasping until her spirit bleeds and her hounds manifest around the house in their mind-bending glory.

The searchers do not know that everything lies within her grasp.

She is not _prey_.  She is the _hunt._

_She_ is the predator.

_She_ is the kill.

They will never know what hit them.

**Author's Note:**

> Alan Rho Petty, Nyarlathotep, it's all the same, right?


End file.
